The key research areas of the department are plant response to biotic and abiotic stresses, and emission of plant-generated biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC). Global change leads to simultaneous modification of multiple environmental drivers and is expected to result in enhanced frequency and severity of environmental and biotic stresses, and stress interactions worldwide. Interdisciplinary experimental, monitoring and modelling approaches are used to analyze stress effects at the molecular, physiological, whole plant and ecosystem levels. Data obtained from these efforts will be used to determine the limits of adaptation to multiple sequential and interacting stresses and to develop new knowledge and models of BVOC dynamics under changing climatic conditions.

Photo. Cross-section of Populus tremula leaf. Light microscopy.

Left: a leaf grown at ambient CO2. Right: a leaf that is grown at higher concentration of CO2 in the air, is thicker and has better developed photosynthetic tissue.

Anatomical changes, which take place in the photosynthetic tissue under elevated CO2 concentration in the air giving us better understanding of the plants photosynthetic capacity under changing conditions.

Photos, The Station for Measuring Ecosystem-Atmosphere Relations (SMEAR Estonia) - established in cooperation with University of Tartu, Tartu Observatory and University of Helsinki. The 130 meter tower has been built to conduct eddy covariance measurements of CO2, H2O and biogenic volatile organic compounds; assessing meteorological data, concentrations of greenhouse gases and reactive trace gases - ozone and NOx.

Photo. Facility to measure constitutive and stress-elicited volatile compounds in the lab (a, b) and in the field-site (c).